Sharing Life's Lessons on Living in this World and yet being Above it!

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Wednesday, July 17, 2013

Live fully! For, in the end, you are on your own…!

Life does not conform to
a blueprint you may create or a strategy you may conceive. Life simply happens
to you. And the best you can do is go with the flow – following your heart,
learning and unlearning from each experience, never grieving but, at the same
time, never ever repeating something that appears to be a mistake to you! In
the end, there are no right or wrong ways to live, you simply live!
Period.

Chances are you may not
have heard of Psyche Abraham, renowned cartoonist Abu Abraham’s (1924~2002)
wife, who passed away in Goa on Monday, July 15th. I too had not
heard of her until I came across her unputdownable book ‘From Kippers to Karimeen: A Life’ (Roli Books, 2008). In a
fascinating account of an eventful Life, where she bares her soul sharing details
of her love Life__with three husbands and several lovers__and her six children,
all of whom she always ‘abandoned’ and whom she eventually reconnected with in
the latter part of her Life, Psyche epitomizes the “Life happens to you. Just go with the flow!”
philosophy.

British-born Valerie
Anne, later nicknamed Psyche, came to India in 1956 after marrying an Indian
student Jhupu Adhikari (“a handsome Bengali”) who was then studying in England.
They lived in Calcutta. They soon moved to Bombay where Jhupu took up a job in an
ad agency. While Jhupu’s career took wing, Psyche began to feel that he was not
interested in her anymore. They drifted apart and Psyche fell in love with
Jhupu’s boss, Jog (“a very attractive man with a great deal of charm”). Psyche
left her son Miti and daughter Sara with Jhupu and returned to England in
preparation to marry Jog who was to divorce his American wife and join Psyche
there. In the meantime that Jog came to England, Psyche had ended up have two
more relationships. One of them led to her pregnancy, which, when she
discovered she could not abort, led to the birth of her daughter Priya. Psyche
gave Priya up for adoption and married Jog when he arrived in England. The
couple moved back to India and Psyche had three children with him – Ini, Joya
and Abhi. Soon, this marriage too was over, as Jog kept moving from one affair
to another. And Psyche got involved with Abu Abraham, married him and they moved
to Trivandrum to live in Abu’s Laurie Baker-designed home ‘Saranam’. She lived there till Abu passed away in 2002, and in subsequent
years moved to Goa, where her son Ini was designing a Japanese style house made
of coconut wood for her. Unfortunately, she died just ahead of that house being
completed.

While her Life certainly
is most intriguing, what’s remarkable is her candor and what she admits to
having learned living her Life! For instance, when she moved in with Abu, she
wrote letters to her children with Jog to explain her decision. She says her children
had mixed feelings about being ‘abandoned’. Abhi, as she says in her book, said
it was “the saddest day of his Life”. But Psyche reflects: “I felt like a heel,
but in the end, as I think they now understand, Life for most of us weaker mortals,
if one is honest, is all about oneself and one’s own salvation. In the end, you
are on your own too.” Reflecting on being pregnant with Priya and wanting to
abort the baby, Psyche says: “What a mess I had managed to make of my Life in
the space of a few months. A husband betrayed, children abandoned. A stepfather
who hated the sight of me, an indifferent father, a worried-sick mother and
grandmother, a lover to whom I had been unfaithful before he had actually
become my lover, yet he had given up all he had for me – his job, his wife, his
home. And now a baby that I was to destroy!”

You don’t have to agree
with the Life she chose but you can’t but admire her courage to share it
openly, humbly, objectively – without guilt, without grief. That’s my learning
for the day! To fully live the Life you are given and that is happening to you,
because, in the end, as Psyche reflects, you are on your own!